During cotton picking time, much cotton is lost when the bolls fall on the ground. Present-day equipment is inefficient to gather these fallen cotton bolls. Prior art machines are either too complicated for the job, or if they are of simple design, these machines leave most of the cotton bolls on the ground after the device attempts to gather the bolls. In addition, most machines endeavor to spear the cotton bolls by some sort of spearing device on an endless belt, and they require devices, such as brushes, which rotate more rapidly than the moving belt, to disengage the bolls from the belt.